larrynew
Well Known Member
Green Laser Attack at KBAZ
We were attacked by a green laser during approach and landing at KBAZ last night. I say attacked because it lasted for several minutes during the approach and landing to rwy 13, for those familiar with New Braunfels.
In 39 years of flying, I’d only seen brief flashes that I assumed were lasers. Nothing to affect safety of flight. This was a serious safety of flight issue. A Challenger jet landing ahead of us told us of the laser and that they had contacted ATC but we were already dealing with it before their alert. After landing, I called 911 to report it and they said they had already been contacted by San Antonio ATC. I filed the initial FAA laser incident report after we got home. I haven’t received the detailed report request from the FAA yet.
I’m posting this to consider, “what would you do?”. The screen shot is from a video my wife took while looking “through” her phone at the laser while avoiding looking directly at it. I had my head down and one hand up trying to block the extremely distracting flashing.
The weather was clear but I was using Garmin’s synthetic visual approach on the GTN650 and displayed on the G3X. The “highway in the sky” boxes on synthetic vision were a big help as I was avoiding looking out of the cockpit. I was thanking my flight instructor for his advice to treat every night flight as semi-IFR. I also had the Max-Viz IR camera display as I use it during night landings to look for deer on the runway but by about 200’, the laser had stopped. I did consider diverting.
One thing I will definitely consider if this ever happens again is to turn off all my lights. After we landed, my wife asked how were they able to see us to aim the laser. In the heat of the moment, I didn’t think of that obvious solution.
We were attacked by a green laser during approach and landing at KBAZ last night. I say attacked because it lasted for several minutes during the approach and landing to rwy 13, for those familiar with New Braunfels.
In 39 years of flying, I’d only seen brief flashes that I assumed were lasers. Nothing to affect safety of flight. This was a serious safety of flight issue. A Challenger jet landing ahead of us told us of the laser and that they had contacted ATC but we were already dealing with it before their alert. After landing, I called 911 to report it and they said they had already been contacted by San Antonio ATC. I filed the initial FAA laser incident report after we got home. I haven’t received the detailed report request from the FAA yet.
I’m posting this to consider, “what would you do?”. The screen shot is from a video my wife took while looking “through” her phone at the laser while avoiding looking directly at it. I had my head down and one hand up trying to block the extremely distracting flashing.
The weather was clear but I was using Garmin’s synthetic visual approach on the GTN650 and displayed on the G3X. The “highway in the sky” boxes on synthetic vision were a big help as I was avoiding looking out of the cockpit. I was thanking my flight instructor for his advice to treat every night flight as semi-IFR. I also had the Max-Viz IR camera display as I use it during night landings to look for deer on the runway but by about 200’, the laser had stopped. I did consider diverting.
One thing I will definitely consider if this ever happens again is to turn off all my lights. After we landed, my wife asked how were they able to see us to aim the laser. In the heat of the moment, I didn’t think of that obvious solution.
Last edited: